Did you want fries with that scorn?
Concerned parents are up in arms about the new Carl’s Jr. commercial featuring a barely-clad Paris Hilton sudsing up a black Bentley to sell a hamburger, claiming the ad is soft-core porn promoting sexuality. My favorite objection is the one on the grounds that because the ad runs during Fox’s The OC, teens who watch The OC will to be exposed to this highly sexualized message before they are ready. Um, what exactly do these people think happens between commercials on The OC? A Carl’s Jr. rep says that these people need to "get a life" and that the ad simply portrays a “beautiful model in a swimsuit washing a car.” I think what he meant to say was a “beautiful celebrity model dullard in a leather cat swim suit washing a car herself. Mark your calendars, I’m going on record as agreeing with the conservative watchdog group. The ad is disgusting, but not for the reasons they think.
Let’s consider the demographic most likely to buy a variation on Carl’s Jr.’s “famous $6 burger.” Having driven past Carl’s Jr. establishments hundreds of times (and even once partaking in some variety of fried chicken parts from there), I have yet to spot a $300,000 Bentley purring in one of its drive throughs. This commercial brings all the hubris of Hilton’s The Simple Life to the middle of regularly scheduled programming. I watched approximately 18 minutes of season 2, episode 1 of The Simple Life before my involuntary dignity reflex propelled me off the couch in search of a book - - one with big, important words. The show opened with Hilton and partner-in-derision Nicole Richie on a shopping spree at a shoe store. (Hilton charges approximately a hundred grand to her credit card for her haul.) Ten minutes later, the pair is bumming gas money from commuters at a tollbooth. Hilton and Richie aren’t cajoling Bentley drivers with their girlish, fake-tanned wiles: the people who give them money are working-class, hourly-wage earners, on their drives home from jobs in which talent or skill was exchanged for money. Basically, they get money from the same type of people who are nice (naïve?) enough to host the duo while Hitlon and Richie take advantage of them, mock them, and finally leave, reminding themselves that they are, in fact better than the people who work for a living using skills other than ordering complicated coffee drinks, intensive pampering, and purchasing small dog accoutrements.
It’s no wonder I was speechless last year when my Big Brothers Big Sisters “little sister” told me that The Simple Life was her favorite show. A little girl whose immigrant, non English speaking, single mom commutes one hour each way by bus to a $9/hour job at a fast food restaurant enjoys watching two trust fund snobs ridicule regular people all over America? Where were the moralistic, family-values-touting watchdog groups then?
So no, I don’t like the commercial. I don’t like that it’s selling regular, hard-working, middle class people who still believe in the wholesomeness of beef a hamburger by telling them that they too can have the approval of this opportunistic sex kitten. Paris will like it all right. She’ll snigger all the way to the bank.
Let’s consider the demographic most likely to buy a variation on Carl’s Jr.’s “famous $6 burger.” Having driven past Carl’s Jr. establishments hundreds of times (and even once partaking in some variety of fried chicken parts from there), I have yet to spot a $300,000 Bentley purring in one of its drive throughs. This commercial brings all the hubris of Hilton’s The Simple Life to the middle of regularly scheduled programming. I watched approximately 18 minutes of season 2, episode 1 of The Simple Life before my involuntary dignity reflex propelled me off the couch in search of a book - - one with big, important words. The show opened with Hilton and partner-in-derision Nicole Richie on a shopping spree at a shoe store. (Hilton charges approximately a hundred grand to her credit card for her haul.) Ten minutes later, the pair is bumming gas money from commuters at a tollbooth. Hilton and Richie aren’t cajoling Bentley drivers with their girlish, fake-tanned wiles: the people who give them money are working-class, hourly-wage earners, on their drives home from jobs in which talent or skill was exchanged for money. Basically, they get money from the same type of people who are nice (naïve?) enough to host the duo while Hitlon and Richie take advantage of them, mock them, and finally leave, reminding themselves that they are, in fact better than the people who work for a living using skills other than ordering complicated coffee drinks, intensive pampering, and purchasing small dog accoutrements.
It’s no wonder I was speechless last year when my Big Brothers Big Sisters “little sister” told me that The Simple Life was her favorite show. A little girl whose immigrant, non English speaking, single mom commutes one hour each way by bus to a $9/hour job at a fast food restaurant enjoys watching two trust fund snobs ridicule regular people all over America? Where were the moralistic, family-values-touting watchdog groups then?
So no, I don’t like the commercial. I don’t like that it’s selling regular, hard-working, middle class people who still believe in the wholesomeness of beef a hamburger by telling them that they too can have the approval of this opportunistic sex kitten. Paris will like it all right. She’ll snigger all the way to the bank.
posted by kelly at 10:07 PM
3 Comments:
i don't know why this surprises you, miss "group identity!" i mean aren't you all about the idea that people identify with whatever aspect of something is most convenient/flattering for them? the show is constructed so that you identify with paris & nicole, and have a laugh at the expense of the unwitting hillbillies. the audience is in on the joke and they know that the point of the show is for the girls to do a bunch of ridiculous shit and make fun of people. in that context, they aren't going to identify with the people that are getting made fun of.
i think the commercial is pretty awesome because it's so shameless and has nothing to do with hamburgers whatsoever. it's like, hey check out paris hilton, oh and by the way, eat our hamburgers. i think it's awesome that the carl's jr dude told them to get a life. it's totally true. if you are concerned about your kid's "morals" becoming corrupted by seeing a fucking commercial, you obviously haven't done a very good job of raising them. the commercial is obviously helping business for the company, and that isn't because the company is a bunch of pervs, it's because americans are a bunch of pervs. what the righteous hypocritical bullshitters fail to grasp is that if people were really all that righteous, they wouldn't be tempted by sexual imagery. but guess what? people are pervs. they like watching paris hilton sex videos on the internet and they like watching sexy paris hilton commercials on tv. i applaud carl's jr for sticking to their guns!
Yes, the audience *thinks* it's in on the joke, but the joke is really at their expense -- which is why it's so repulsive!
I agree that it's clever -- people are watching the commercial, but do they come away thinking "mmm...hamburgers" or "mmm...Paris...suds"?
I don't know, I always watched the show laughing at the complete lack of reality that Paris and Nicole live in. I wasn't pitying the "poor hard working" American, I felt bad for Paris and Nicole and how they would quickly die of starvation if they ever ran out of money.
As for the commercial, and I may be thinking with "not my brain" here, but I thought it was well done. Granted, I don't think it should be shown during Uncle Wilbur's Family Funtime Cartoon Hour (or the real life equivalent), but it was quite witty, and relevant. It does exactly what a commerical is supposed to do, generate a buzz about a spicy hamburger. And you can bet there are a lot more people who have heard of Carl's Jr. now than there were before the commercial was talked about, blogged about, and griped about. To be quite honest, I haven't even seen it on TV yet, I've only seen it on the internet... because everyone has been complaining about it...
Now that's advertising
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